manqiangrexue
Brigadier
Also, people are assuming MAD whenever a country has nukes. That's not true. North Korea/Pakistan does not have MAD with Russia or the US. The size of your country, the size of the nuclear fleet, and technological level/fleet size of interceptors will still create a power dynamic. A small country with few nukes may be able to shoot off a couple of middle finger nukes and maybe 1 or 2 will hit, causing some damage to a target superpower but the nuclear retaliation from that superpower will be fatal for the smaller nation.Right, this is my take as well, I don't see this as an existential defeat for China, because MAD isn't the same as invincibility (unless you're the one without nukes). Between nuclear powers, ironically conventional hard power (military, industrial, etc.) becomes more important in competitive parity. The only thing that is being denied by MAD is total defeat and the ability to inflict it (by either Japan or China).
At least, until ABM capabilities improve. And I expect, in a world where nukes are more widely available, that will become the main determinant of whether you can maintain MAD or not, and will in a sense become the new criteria for MAD.
I am the very last guy to endorse nuclear weapons for Japan... unless China delivers them of course, but the trend is that tech only steps forward, not backward. If a nation is intent on obtaining a technology, it will eventually get it, unless it were destroyed before then. So to paint a nuclear armed Japan as a doomsday for China is simply barking up the wrong tree. Of course we should oppose it but, we should also realize that our options are limited. What we should focus on is something that would make our enemies' options limited in dealing with us rather than our options limited in dealing with them, and that is innovating tech to intercept/disrupt nuclear weapons and creating weapons that are game-changingly more destructive and devastating than the nukes that our enemies employ. Make it so that by the time Japan gets nukes, if it ever does, there is no point and they are outclassed again.
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